Thursday, November 27, 2008

Commuting via Railways

I've been traveling via MMTS (Multi Modal Transport System) for over a year now. The reason being it's cheap, it's comfortable, and takes less time as compared to the other public transportation like bus. MMTS was a new means of communication for me, because all this while I was traveling in a bus. What made my affinity grow towards MMTS was that it has around two compartments especially for ladies.

As time passed by I saw that men started getting into the ladies coupe'. What the hell? Yeah and they have this PHC section at one end of the ladies compartment. Men of all ages come and comfortably occupy these seats. If you try to explain that this compartment is meant for ladies, they argue that the PHC section is for gents.

Even the posters and notices that say "Men traveling in ladies compartment can be fined up to Rs 500" fail to stop men traveling in the ladies compartment. The TTE play it safe. They come and drive these men out once in a blue moon. After a period of time everything comes back to same point. If you happen to travel late at night say post 8 pm, you might have to sit and pray that you reach home safely. The recent news http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id-NEWEN20080073935 about a lady who lost her arm to escape a drunken men gives you all the more reasons to avoid traveling late at night.

Though as a law abiding citizen I get a train pass or buy tickets, but guess what, the TTE never bothers to check the tickets. They check it when the train is almost empty. If they checked the tickets on a regular basis the number of people traveling without tickets would be driven away. That would make more room for people who buy tickets.

But there's no point in cribbing about MMTS because people who stay far off from the city have no other means but to switch to MMTS as it is the best public transportation system. But SCR can take certain measures to stop men traveling in ladies compartment. They can run MMTSs specifically for working ladies. Better still they can add more ladies coaches to existing trains.

But let's just wait and watch what measure the SCR takes to make traveling via trains a better experience.